6 of the Best Eco-Friendly Investments To Make

Hello everyone! Here is a list of eco-friendly investments that are totally worth every penny. Enjoy!

1. Electric Composter

If you’re at all familiar with composting, you might know that doing it by hand can take anywhere from a couple weeks to several months, which can be a deterrent for many. (If you’re not familiar with composting, check out my blog post about it.) Luckily, electric composters exist! These handy machines will do all of the hard work for you, so you can produce compost from your kitchen with ease. Check out this article by Compost Culture for a list of the best electric composters.

2. Reusable Bags

Chances are that you’ve used a number of plastic shopping bags before in your lifetime. What did you do with them? Did you throw them out? Plastic bags are large contributors to the global waste problem, and don’t really benefit the environment unless you reuse them. A more eco-friendly alternative to plastic bags are reusable bags. You can find them virtually everywhere, even in grocery stores! You can keep some in your car like we do, so every time you shop, you can pack your products in your reusable bags and positively contribute to the environment. Just don’t forget them!

3. Electric Car

These may be the largest investment on the list, but electric cars are really worthwhile. Instead of running on gasoline and emitting enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) like traditional cars do, they run on electricity, which eliminates GHG emissions. I’m hoping they get a little less expensive in the future so more people can have access to them and the transportation sector can lower its contributions to the carbon footprint, as it’s currently the largest US contributor. (Check out my blog post about carbon footprints if you’re unfamiliar with them.)

4. Solar Panels

This is probably obvious, but solar power is a great renewable energy source for buildings to run on! (To learn more about renewable vs nonrenewable energy sources, check out my blog post about them.) Switching to solar panels is another great way to reduce your carbon footprint!

5. Locally Grown / Organic Food

Buying your food local not only helps to support local businesses, but also reduces the carbon footprint created from the food’s transportation, as it isn’t being shipped from far away like most food is. While organic food can be a bit pricier, its production is usually much more eco-friendly; animals are fed with better quality food, crops are treated with healthier pesticides, etc. It’s better to support this type of production!

6. Donations

Last, but certainly not least, consider donating to any charity or foundation that works towards bettering the environment, especially those that are local. After all, change will come from us! Do some research and find an organization that you like, you might even end up joining them! Here’s a list of some by UC Berkeley.

Hopefully you’ll try some of these this year!